Ash (6 page)

It struck Ash that the vivacious stewardess hadn’t used the blonde girl’s name and he wondered if that was company policy with pre-guests. Maybe Ginny didn’t even know what it was. He remembered he still had Kate on the line.

‘Kate, I’ll phone you when I get to Comraich, but if you need to, you can call me again mid-air.’

‘Shouldn’t be necessary. I’ll be interested in your take on the castle, though.’

‘Okay. Later.’ He closed the mobile phone and returned it to his jacket pocket.

The girl with the mussed-up blonde hair plodded her way down the cabin, the sulky, sullen look of a Geldof daughter spoiling her otherwise pretty face. She barely glanced at Ash as Dr Wyatt guided her from behind to the sofa seat across the aisle from him. In contrast to the psychologist’s modish outfit, her charge wore an odd match of clothes that seemed thrown on rather than carefully chosen when she’d stirred (probably reluctantly) from her bed to make the morning flight. She wore a deep-mauve open blazer that was longer than her high-waisted dotted skirt, which was loosely tied with a cloth belt. A white T-shirt was tucked into the skirt’s high waist and three silver chains of different lengths hung down around her neck. She was slight of stature (worsened by the hunching of her shoulders). Her fishnet tights, slightly torn at one knee, ran down into chunky wedge heels, and clutched in both hands was a brown overfilled Mulberry bag. Pretty though she was, the girl’s over-kohled, downcast eyes only added to her air of sulky recalcitrance.

‘We’ll sit here, Petra,’ said Dr Wyatt, easing the girl into the seat, ‘then after take-off you can lie down and sleep for a little while.’

Settling herself beside Petra, the psychologist tucked her own crinkled leather satchel behind her ankles and beamed a smile towards Ash.

He returned the smile but it faltered in surprise, for her dark eyes, her finely etched lips, the light tan of her smooth skin . . .

Well, she wasn’t quite what he’d expected.

Kate sat at her desk, her swivel chair turned to face one of the tall windows of her office. Beyond the glass it was yet another fine early autumnal day, although nippy in the streets. She usually got to the Institute around 8 a.m., which gave her quiet time to deal with the paperwork – the government rules, red tape and health-and-safety directives – that was every employer’s bane. By the time other staff arrived and things started to get busy, she would be able to concentrate on her proper duties, which meant sending and checking emails, making and receiving phone calls, writing reports on any supernatural or paranormal activities that had come to the Institute’s notice, genuine or suspect, which would then be filed and copies sent to other psychical research establishments around the world (she believed in sharing information with those who were both friendly and legitimate), while taking on board any new accounts of phenomena and interviewing prospective clients (she’d no idea why, but people seemed more susceptible to hauntings when the days grew colder and the darkness earlier).

But this morning Kate was spending more time on reflection.

Had she done the right thing in sending David up to Scotland? Was he mentally strong enough to handle a genuine and apparently vicious haunting? And had she been right in accepting this commission when the organization that Simon Maseby represented was so shadowy, even if so lucrative for the Institute?

In less than five months’ time the lease on the building would be up and the rent, plus management fees, ground rent and service charge, were bound to be increased. Where the money would come from Kate had no idea; not until Simon Maseby had contacted her, that is. She’d been about to warn her workforce and consultants (spiritualists, mediums, clairvoyants–evenexor-cists) of the impending problem when Simon had called her from out of the blue.

Kate was pleased to hear from an old friend after such a long time and, because he’d said the matter was urgent, she’d arranged a meeting for later that afternoon. That had been a few days ago, just before the weekend, and Kate was intrigued by Simon’s story and mystified by his reluctance to divulge details of the people or organization that employed him. Nevertheless, the amount they were prepared to pay for an investigation into this supposedly haunted Scottish castle had blown away all reservations on her part; considering the Institute’s looming financial situation, she would have been foolish not to have accepted his offer.

One of the contract’s conditions did concern her, though: Simon was adamant that only a single psychic investigator should be assigned to the case. Kate had argued – as had David at the subsequent meeting with Simon – that such a huge building would require a team of investigators – at least three or four people – to cover the area, but Simon remained inflexible. Eventually they had agreed on a compromise: one investigator initially, then a proper team if necessary afterwards. And as far as she was concerned, that one person had to be David Ash. Simon agreed, although he insisted on knowing more about this particular parapsychologist.

Kate had given a brief summary of Ash’s career so far (although she avoided giving too many details of David’s previous investigations). She’d also sent over a couple of copies of David’s treatise on the supernatural when Maseby had first contacted her.

The side door of her office opened and her PA poked his head through the opening. ‘Morning, Kate. Coffee?’

She swung the chair round to face him and pointed at the empty jumbo mug on the desk – dainty crockery was only used when clients were present.

‘Had some already, Tom,’ she told him.

‘Right. Anything special you want me to get on to?’

‘I’ll dictate some letters later. Can you file the stuff I’ve already left on your desk? Oh, and will you spend a little time on your computer for me this morning?’ Tom was a master of Google.

‘Sure, no problem. What d’you want me to look for?’

Kate hesitated. Was it right to involve her young assistant in this affair? After all, she herself was sworn to secrecy. Bringing in another person at this stage might be unwise and a breach of the contract she’d signed. She quickly changed her mind, not prepared to jeopardize the agreement.

‘Sorry, Tom. Forget about that last bit.’

She would search the net herself. It would take her longer, but at least it wouldn’t involve another person from the Institute, just as Simon had stipulated again after they had made unsatisfactory love.

Today she felt guilty. Not because she’d slept with Simon – regret would have been ridiculous – but because she’d lied to David, and she knew he’d sensed it. His psychic abilities were more than just a focused intuition.

With a sigh that was almost a groan, Kate logged on and got ready to Google.

She already knew it would be a difficult search and, possibly, a fruitless one.

Cedric Twigg had been looking through the Gulfstream’s window, but taking nothing in, when the stewardess’s voice interrupted his reverie. As he peered up at her, he realized his heart was beating like a jackhammer, too fast and too hard. He forced himself to control the palpitations, something he used to do with ease a year or so ago, but not nowadays. Even though the surprise was quickly dealt with, he realized it took a little longer to compose himself each time he was caught day-dreaming.

‘Sorry, Mr Twigg, I think I startled you.’

Balanced skilfully on one arm, she held the daily newspapers, fanned out like a magician’s giant deck of cards.

He skimmed the titles. ‘
Telegraph
,’ he said.

Ginny’s smile was unaltered, but he noticed her eyes had hardened at his rudeness. With her free hand she pulled out the requested broadsheet and handed it to him. He accepted it without thanks.

Twigg immediately saw the headline he was expecting, and while the story didn’t take up the whole front page, it was prominent enough to satisfy the assassin’s perverse ego. It surprised him that they had already made the connection between yesterday’s killing and the one carried out more than thirty years ago. He remembered with relish.

In September 1978, the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who used the BBC’s World Service to broadcast damaging diatribes against his mother country’s communist regime, was marked out to be ‘liquidated’. The Bulgarian Secret Service had sought help from Russia’s KGB – nowadays known as the SVR – and they had suggested using a young Englishman who lived in London, and who had carried out three successful ‘closures’ for them already.

Twigg smiled as he recalled the method chosen to eliminate Markov. A simple umbrella had been fitted with a hidden cylinder of compressed gas that fired a single pellet filled with the biotoxin ricin, the deadly derivative of castor oil. He had followed the dissident onto Waterloo Bridge, and when Markov waited at a bus stop, the young assassin had pushed the umbrella’s tip into the Bulgarian’s calf muscle. An innocent accident that Markov gave little attention to. Three days later he was dead.

That was many years ago and Twigg almost chuckled to himself, for New Scotland Yard was
still
investigating the murder. A British counter-terrorism team had even paid a visit to Bulgaria in 2008, and continued to work with the ‘appropriate international authorities’, as they put it, hoping to draw a satisfactory conclusion to the investigation. As yet, nobody had been charged with Markov’s murder.

Monday’s assassination of the Russian broadcaster Boris Dubchenski, who constantly railed against the influence of certain billionaire oligarchs over his country’s political leaders, was practically a replica of Markov’s murder more than three decades ago. Except this time, Twigg had use of a ‘spotter’, waiting on the other side of Bush House, whereas before he’d worked alone; also, Twigg had used a faster-acting dose of ricin, which had killed even more expeditiously. To this day, Cedric Twigg was uncertain exactly how the Inner Court had discovered he was the original dissident’s assassin (a Russian informer, he guessed), but they were swift to appreciate his skill and just as swift to recruit him for themselves. Their inducements of high financial rewards and ‘lifetime’ security (unusual for a hit man) were enough to win his loyalty, a loyalty he’d always assumed was mutual. But now he was sixty-one years old and there was something not quite right with him physically: occasionally his whole body, especially his hands, gave in to small though, as yet, unremarked tremors.

He laid the newspaper across his lap and dropped both hands to clutch the edge of his seat. It seemed that just thinking of the slow but merciless onset of illness was enough to incite those tiny tremors again.

A thin, almost invisible, drool of saliva seeped from one side of his mouth.

Ash had known that Dr Wyatt would be female, but he’d expected someone older and less – well, less alluring. Ash found it hard not to stare across the plane’s narrow aisle at the stunningly beautiful woman who shared the sofa seat with the young blonde girl.

Dr Wyatt acknowledged him with a quick smile before returning her attention to the girl in her charge. The psychologist spoke in hushed tones, as if to calm her before the flight, and soon the patient was lolling back, her tousled head resting on the psychologist’s shoulder. When Ginny came by with the daily newspapers, Dr Wyatt gave a small shake of her head accompanied by a sweet smile.

‘Can I get you something to drink after take-off?’ Ginny asked.

‘I’ll have some tea,’ replied the psychologist. ‘English breakfast tea?’

‘Not a problem.’

Ash was surprised at her preference: with her Mediterranean looks, he’d expected her to request something more
exotic
, especially when the aircraft carried such a richly distinctive choice of beverage.

And then she glanced at him again, but this time – and with no effort on his part – he held her gaze. Her cheeks blushed red even through the natural tan of her skin, and her eyelashes fluttered (not through coyness, he was sure, but involuntarily) before she broke away. Yet in those few seconds, Ash had felt a confusing kind of frisson between them, as if they already knew each other – no, that wasn’t it; it was as if they were both suddenly aware that their futures were tethered together. It was crazy. How could he possibly know what
she
felt when he was so bewildered by his own reaction? Surely he’d misread the mood. But the feeling had begun to form the moment she’d entered the plane, and just now had asserted itself so profoundly that it left him dazed. With something like despair, he remembered having a similar reaction once before, a time best forgotten. The cause then had been a woman named Grace; a woman he’d loved so very much.

The stewardess’s voice penetrated the awful memory. ‘Would you like today’s paper, Mr Ash?’

‘Sorry . . . ?’

She lifted the fan of newspapers slightly to bring them to her passenger’s attention.

‘Oh. Er, no. I’m fine, thank you.’ He rested his head back against the top of his seat and closed his eyes.

‘It’s only a short flight, sir. Just outside an hour.’ She’d misunderstood his reaction, thinking him nervous of flying. ‘We’ll be in Scotland in no time at all.’

He opened his eyes again, if only to reassure Ginny. ‘It’s a nice way to travel,’ was all he could think of to say.

‘Yes, the interior designs of private planes can be made to suit the client’s specifications. Corporations like to see their insignia inside and outside the aircraft. Some very wealthy individuals like works of art on the cabin walls, or even chandeliers, would you believe? Not made of glass though – that would be foolish.’ She giggled at that.

Ginny reached for his now-empty coffee cup. ‘I’ll clear this away for you. Perhaps you’d like something stronger when we’re in the air?’

Again that irrational notion. Was he being tested over alcohol? No. Paranoia, he told himself again.

Looking up into her clear blue eyes, he asked, ‘Who actually owns this jet? Is it chartered?’

‘Oh, no. It’s Sir Victor’s. Sir Victor Haelstrom? That’s who you’re going up to see, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah, of course I am. I’m looking forward to it.’